As we welcome a new year, we would like to extend our warmest thanks to everyone across the world who has supported, contributed to, and believed in the work of the INTBAU Network throughout 2025. Your commitment, energy, and shared sense of purpose continue to sustain and strengthen our global community.
This year has been especially meaningful for the Network. In 2025, we commenced a year-long celebration of INTBAU’s 25th anniversary and our vision which, a quarter of a century on, feels more relevant than ever.
Around the world, communities are seeking ways to maintain and advance their built traditions and to build sustainably in the face of rapid social, environmental, and economic change. In response to these shared challenges, approaches rooted in traditional building, architecture, and urbanism are proving both timely and relevant.
Our work continued to gain momentum this year through INTBAU’s interconnected strands of Education, Advocacy, and Grants for the most impactful proposals from chapters and the wider network. Through a wide range of projects and programmes, members and chapters worldwide are translating these principles into practice, reaffirming tradition as an essential, living component of the modern built environment. The topics addressed are richly diverse — from community-led urban design that shapes the future use of place-based heritage, to the transmission of knowledge around traditional buildings, materials, and techniques grounded in local climate, culture, and context.
Throughout this milestone year, this momentum was reflected across several key areas of the Network’s work:
Broadening representation and expanding global perspectives. In 2025, we were delighted to welcome new INTBAU Chapters in Kenya, Colombia, and Hungary, expanding the Network’s geographic reach and bringing new perspectives and voices into our shared conversation.
Furthering skills development and knowledge transfer. INTBAU Chapters delivered education programmes in Italy, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Mexico, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Qatar, Romania, and Austria, advancing skills, knowledge exchange, and professional development across regions.
Supporting communities to lead change from the ground up. Our second round of Grassroots Grants supported six locally grounded yet globally relevant projects in Mexico, Poland, Uganda, Canada, Morocco, and India, enabling communities to apply traditional knowledge to address contemporary local challenges.
Sustaining an active and engaged global Network. Throughout the year, the Network remained highly active across a broad spectrum of conferences, publications, webinars, awards, competitions, exhibitions, workshops, and gatherings. This breadth of activity reflects not only the diversity of our membership, but also a consistent, well-structured approach to advancing knowledge, supporting practitioners, and informing practice across regions and scales.
Prioritising humane and context-sensitive reconstruction. Post-disaster reconstruction remains a critical focus of our work. This year saw continued emphasis on humane, liveable rebuilding that respects local culture, craft, and community, with important developments in Ukraine and Türkiye highlighting once again the essential role of traditional knowledge in recovery and resilience.
Championing practitioners and strengthening the professional ecosystem. Our Professional Membership continues to grow, welcoming practitioners from an expanding range of disciplines. Alongside architects and urban designers, craftspeople and academics, our Professional Membership welcomed specialists working in areas such as engineering and structural studies, heritage conservation, and cultural safeguarding in conflict contexts, strengthening the wider ecosystem that supports traditional building today. This breadth reinforces the relevance, resilience, and contemporary application of tradition, while remaining firmly grounded in its core principles.
Convening global dialogue and shared learning. We also celebrated the 5th INTBAU World Congress in London, bringing together over 250 participants from more than 40 countries. Through studio visits, panel discussions, keynote addresses, and breakout sessions, the Congress offered a vibrant space to explore both the present realities and future directions of traditional building, architecture, and urbanism.
As we look ahead to 2026, we remain guided by a shared understanding: tradition is not static, nostalgic, or backward-looking, but a dynamic and evolving body of knowledge with a unique capacity to address contemporary challenges with depth, humanity, and continuity.
Join us for a year of 25th anniversary activities
As part of the anniversary celebrations, we invite you to explore our commemorative publication 25 Years of INTBAU, available for download. Looking both back and forward, the publication brings together a historical review and timeline alongside essays from Chapters worldwide, highlighting the diverse and forward-looking ways in which traditional building continues to shape resilient, humane, and sustainable futures. This publication marks the beginning of a year of exchange and celebration that will continue throughout 2026.
With renewed gratitude and optimism, we wish all our members, chapters, partners, and supporters a very happy New Year! We look forward to continuing this journey together in 2026, as the Network grows, strengthens its impact, and carries its work forward into the years to come.
